


Death's Sister

by A_Firewatchers_Daughter



Category: Original Work
Genre: Afterlife, Death, Murder, Suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:00:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26304535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Firewatchers_Daughter/pseuds/A_Firewatchers_Daughter
Summary: Zilla has done this job alone for three centuries. She has taken souls on and she has left them remain. She has fought for the lives of people in the world before hers - a world in which she once lived.But now Death has made a mistake. One that might cost a young woman her life. Even what Earthly souls call the 'afterlife' has its politics, and Death never was particularly savvy about it. His predecessor, his Father, corrupted the system, but Zilla must now work to prevent the games from corrupting this Death.The fate of two worlds and the life of a woman depend upon it.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

Night fell early as the year began its end. Darkness swamped the sky by five in the afternoon. I’d been here three times this year already; the pull was stronger this time, like it would be my final trip. I hoped I was mistaken, for I always did hate to see a life cut short.

I followed my subject through into the house, getting inside just as she closed the front door.

“Jacintha?” a voice called out from the next room.

Jacintha opened the door into the living room. “Yeah?” she said with a firm smile. When she saw the expression on her caller’s face, a woman in her sixties, she frowned. “Are you okay, Ruth?”

Ruth let out a weary sigh. “Just Mam as usual.”

“What’s she done?”

“I went up for a shower, _told_ her that’s where I was going,” Ruth said bitterly, “and five minutes later she’s rattling at the door, calling for me to ask what I was doing.”

Jacintha sat down next to Ruth and allowed her a consoling hand on her shoulder. “Where is she now?”

“Upstairs, sulking like I’m the Wicked Witch of the West.” Ruth leaned over and lit a cigarette. “Maybe she’s right. Maybe I’m the problem here.”

“You’re not the problem,” Jacintha said, not a trace of doubt in her answer. “You have every right to expect to be able to go for a shower without her following you. I’ve seen it for myself. God, I give out to my mother for lesser crimes!”

I had met Ruth once before. I came to her father when he died, but could not hide from her. She sensed my existence. Spoke to me. Not only was it a rare thing for a human, not on the brink of their existence, to do, but it was something I was not supposed to do. I only did because I knew I was seldom ever watched by then. Of course, she did not believe she ever met me. Humans liked to rationalise that which they could not understand, and so Ruth always contended that, in her grief, she had imagined me. The majority of humans chose to dismiss me this way; perhaps it was the only way they could cope.

“But she’s _old_ -”

“Which means she’s had plenty of time to learn how to treat people. Age isn’t an excuse for making people miserable.”

Ruth looked at Jacintha like she knew the girl was right.

Jacintha sat down next to Ruth, her hand on Ruth’s arm. “ _Are_ you okay?” she asked gently. She wasn’t fooled by the calculated irritation Ruth put on display; there was always far more to it than that.

I watched from the sofa opposite as Ruth stared straight through me into the curtains behind. “Every time I think she’s getting the message,” she explained, “she goes and does it all again. I’m trying my best to help her, Jacintha, I am. I don’t want us to fight like this.”

It cracked with her voice. That show of bitter frustration broke into what it existed to disguise: the perpetual despair that came with loving someone who drove her mad.

“I know,” Jacintha sighed. “I see it.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“If you can’t get Marjorie to change her behaviour, maybe you need to find ways you can deal with how she makes you feel. Look after yourself instead of trying to make her behave.”

Ruth looked at Jacintha blankly for a moment. “What, like therapy?”

“Not necessarily, but it might help,” Jacintha said with a shrug. “The thing that gets me about you is you hide behind anger. Whatever you feel, if it makes you feel like shit, you let us all think you’re angry. I can see through it but I don’t think Marjorie does.” Jacintha patted Ruth’s arm gingerly. “It’s like I said before. The difference between you and Marjorie is that you have a kind of cursed empathy, and Marjorie doesn’t. She can only relate things to herself; she can’t put herself in anyone else’s position, but you put yourself in other shoes and walk in them ‘til you fall down.”

For a moment, I was astounded. It was no wonder nobody had guessed it yet. How could anyone know from her manner where I had just followed her from? That bridge over the Boyne River, where she stood and decided not to die yet…there was no giveaway. There was nothing upon which Ruth could pick up, no matter how closely she might have looked.

What was Ruth to do when all she could see was Jacintha delivering reasonable advice?

“Oh,” said Jacintha with a smile. “I got you this while I was out.” From her backpack, she pulled out a small rectangular box. Ruth opened it to reveal a gold-coloured pen. “Since you seem to spend your life asking me for a shot of a pen.”

Ruth laughed. “You’re mad.”

“You knew that.”

The older woman shook her head to herself and closed the box. “Thank you, love. You shouldn’t be wasting your money on me.”

“Don’t be silly. If I couldn’t afford it, I wouldn’t have bought it, would I?”

There was a look on Ruth’s face that lingered for only a fraction of a moment. It betrayed how this girl confused her. How, in everything she did, she was a contradiction of herself.

The living room door opened; Ruth’s mother appeared, obviously irked about something. She sat down and stared at the television; Ruth and Jacintha looked at one another like they knew what was coming, but they said nothing. I waited with them, and would stay unless beckoned elsewhere.

They did not ask Marjorie what her mood was about, for they knew already and wished not to discuss it again. Or rather, I thought they wanted to avoid the discussion becoming heated again. Instead, they carried on talking as though everything was normal, trying to involve her in the conversation. She gave them very little. I wondered if she feigned deafness. As old as she was, I did doubt that her hearing could be so poor. She heard the tiniest noises when she wanted to.

The normality was striking. These people behaved like Marjorie was not sulking and Jacintha was not suicidal. Unremarkable conversations about the television, politics and food, rather than the fractured relationships and harrowed despair. “I’m gonna go and make dinner,” Ruth said at around six o’clock. Jacintha smiled up at her as she got to her feet. Marjorie completely ignored her. 

“What’s up, Marjorie?” asked Jacintha, though she already knew.

“Me? Nothing, love.”

“Leave off,” scoffed Jacintha, “your face is tripping you.”

Marjorie’s eyes darted to the spot Ruth had just vacated and then back to Jacintha. “I’ve upset Ruth again.”

“How?”

“She said she was going for a shower and I…” she said, but did not finished.

Jacintha sighed. “Knocked on the door?”

“I just wanted to check she was okay!” Marjorie said defensively. “I didn’t mean any harm. I just thought something might have happened to her.”

Jacintha leaned forwards and held Marjorie’s gaze for a second. “Look, if Ruth had hurt herself, we’d all know about it. She’s not the type to sit there quiet, is she? You’d be able to hear her effin’ and blindin’ from Cork!”

Marjorie was quite clearly loath to agree, but she eventually said, “No, I suppose you’re right about that.”

“And has she ever hurt herself in the shower before?”

“No.”

“Well then. There’s no need to worry about it.”

“I can’t help worrying.”

“I know.” Marjorie looked at her sceptically, to which Jacintha continued, “I’ve struggled with my anxiety levels since I was a child, so actually, I do know. But what I also know is that you have to learn to control it, rather than it controlling you, otherwise it eats you alive. And you can be sure that you can’t expect other people’s lives to revolve around your anxieties. That just isn’t fair. Ruth has told you and better than told you that there’s no need to check up on her when she’s in the shower or in her bedroom. If she needs you, she’ll call you. If she needs me, she’ll call me. She’s not helpless and she’s not stupid.”

“I wasn’t checking-”

“You were. You just said you were. The next time you feel the impulse to do that, ask yourself if there’s any good reason for doing it, other than a worry you can’t explain. If there isn’t a valid reason, based in reality, to knock on that door, just leave her alone. She’s sixty, not six, of course she doesn’t want her Mam chappin’ on the door all the time.”

Marjorie wanted to argue, simply because she hated to be told she was wrong. However, as she looked straight at Jacintha, her face softened a little. “You’re right. Of course you’re right.”

“The best thing you can do is apologise to Ruth and start working on how you let that anxiety influence your behaviour, because it’s not reasonable to expect people to jump out of the shower to calm your nerves after you’ve worked yourself into a frenzy.”

Marjorie nodded. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” She said it abruptly, but with a smile.

Jacintha got up and went to the kitchen; I slipped in behind her before she closed the door. Ruth looked around at her. “Your Mam’s ready to apologise,” said Jacintha. She went into the fridge and took out a bottle of cider. As she opened it, she added, “I explained to her that no matter what her anxieties tell her, it isn’t fair to expect others to revolve around them.”

“Did she take any notice?” asked Ruth. She put a hand on Jacintha’s shoulder as she stretched up to the cupboard above to retrieve a jar.

Jacintha shrugged and took a swig from her bottle. “Seemed to. You never quite know with that one, though.”

“Tell me about it,” Ruth half-laughed. “I’ve been dealing with her for sixty years.” She replaced the jar back into the cupboard and closed the door over. “Ah, sure, I love her really.”

“I know.”

Ruth frowned a little when she caught sight of Jacintha’s face. “Are you alright, love?”

“Yeah, grand,” Jacintha replied, sure to smile.

Though clearly unconvinced, Ruth did not press her for the details. Perhaps she sensed it would do more harm than good to force it right now, for she only patted Jacintha’s cheek affectionately.

She would be okay for the rest of the night. I was sure of it. With Ruth there, she would not try anything. Safe in the knowledge that this tiny world of three would survive the night, I waited until Ruth took the dog inside to eat and slipped out the back, where I could return to my world.

* * *

I was beckoned for Jacintha again that night. I presumed Jacintha would not have gone back out, that she would be in the house with Ruth and Marjorie. I was wrong. What was more, their reconciliation, brokered by Jacintha, seemed to be splintering.

“Mam, will you just give it over?! I am sixty years of age – I know how to wash the pots!”

“I’m only telling you the right way to do it!”

“No, you’re telling me the way _you_ would do it!” Ruth retorted. “Not everything you say is right, Mam!”

This was not the first time they found themselves arguing over the washing up. It would not be the last, either. Far from it. They spoke like they had gone through this argument every week for years.

“Ruth!” Marjorie said; she sounded hurt, but Ruth knew that Marjorie was well able to sound however she wanted to sound. “You can’t say things like that!”

“Oh, I can,” Ruth snorted. “And I am. Cut it out.”

Marjorie stalked out of the kitchen moodily, muttering something about impudence. Ruth rolled her eyes and set about washing the pots properly. She seemed full of resignation to her situation, and yet she resisted.

“Where’s Jacintha?” asked Marjorie, materialising once more at the kitchen door. “It’s late.”

“She’s twenty-four, Mammy, she can be out late if she wants.” Impatience seeped through every pore of Ruth’s skin; it astounded me that Marjorie not only failed to see it, but continued to provoke it.

“I don’t even know why you have her here,” grumbled Marjorie as she sat down at the table, finally relenting her issue with the pots.

“Jacintha is here to make sure you don’t head dive down the stairs while I’m out. You know that, and I’m not having this discussion with you again.” Marjorie’s jaw set itself tightly in irritation. Ruth glanced around at her. “And quite frankly, she’s the only person I know who’s able for you.”

I stepped back from the patio door; they could not see me until the moment of my choosing, but still, there was somewhere else I ought to have been.

The night air was cold. Frozen. Too cold even for an Irish December. I would have blamed climate change if I didn’t know it to be caused by my very presence. Frost formed beneath my feet along the garden path that led me from this house.

A dog, a grey and white husky, blocked my path. She saw me – dogs always could see me, whether I chose them to or not. She lifted her head, the threat of a howl forming in her throat. I reached out to her; she was a sweet dog, settled by a few moments of gentle ear-scratching. “Good girl,” I whispered to her. She allowed me to pass her, so I quietly let myself out of the garden gate onto the driveway and past the car to the street pavement. The gate creaked a little, but I knew those inside the house would write it off as a neighbour’s gate. After all, who was going to try and get through a garden with a husky staring them down?

This was a fairly small town. I could see why Ruth wasn’t too bothered by Jacintha being out at almost midnight – there were only so many places she might have lingered once the pubs shut. The thing about it was, though, that there were places Ruth hadn’t even considered Jacintha might go. It was a forgivable oversight. Jacintha, after all, came across as very sensible. To observe her, one might not have realised she was merely twenty-four.

For the most part, I watched Jacintha behave responsibly, with kindness and common sense.

And then I saw her alone. There was one person she seemed unable to treat with kindness and common sense.

I wandered the streets, through places I had known her to hide, but she was not in any of her usual haunts. She was nowhere near the pubs on the main street, nor could I find her on the road she usually took home from them. On the bridge over the river, I looked through the darkness into the trees that lined the bank. I knew there was a path that led to those trees; perhaps that was where Jacintha was hiding.

The easiest way to get there from here was to jump off the bridge; where my feet slammed onto the water, two columns of ice formed right down into the riverbed. By the time I hopped onto the bank, it had washed away in the current.

These woods were dense and dark, with only the light of the moon occasionally breaking through. To a more human eye, it might not have been of much use, but it was enough to keep me with my bearings. I wondered briefly how many fragile humans had found themselves lost here in the night, in the dark. They were not mine to worry about unless they were on the verge of death, so I safely assumed the vast majority made it out alive. Nevertheless, somebody really should have put a clearer path than this through these trees.

I found Jacintha by the light of her phone. She sat on the ground, leaning against the trunk of a large tree in the night’s dry frost. Despite the frost in the air, she wore only her jeans and hoodie. Didn’t she feel the cold? Couldn’t she feel the chill that came as I drew near?

In her hands, she held a clear plastic bag, the kind humans used to seal and store food. As far as I could make out, it contained a bottle of vodka and a multitude of pills.

Smoke descended over Jacintha, black and impenetrable in the night. “You should do it,” the smoke hissed. Venom poured from the very air he inhabited and dripped into his prey’s lungs. “Your life is worth nothing, after all.”

I stepped forwards. “Leave her,” I said.

The smoke was suddenly still, no longer churning in the air around Jacintha; in less than a second, there was no more smoke, but a man stood opposite me. “What is your claim to her?” the man asked. So tall and thin was he that it took me a moment to remember that he could not feel as cold as he appeared to.

“I have no claim,” I admitted, “other than that she is needed here.”

“ _Needed_?” he repeated; his white face contorted into a sneer. Death never was one to mock the dying; where was his sudden lack of respect coming from?

“Yes.”

It was not a claim I expected him to take solemnly, but the high-pitched bells of laughter he replied with seemed a little unnecessary. “What is she needed for?”

A silence seeped into the air between us. He knew I had no certain answer, but I could not allow him to proceed like this. It was not his place. What he had been doing to this girl was simply cruel. Death – as crazy as it must sound to a human – had never been a brutal being. He had his role to play but he always played it with decorum and without sadism. This new version of Death was someone I did not know, more like his predecessor than himself.

“This must stop, Death,” I sighed. “Sometimes you have to give people a fighting chance.”

“It is not my fault that she yearns to join me.”

“No, but you don’t have to entice her!” I shouted. He startled slightly; it was always satisfying to give Death himself a fright. “You don’t have to whisper in her ear!”

Death stared me down for a moment. “What do you suggest I do, then? She will join me sooner or later. It has been that way since the beginning, and it will remain so until our worlds end. And may I remind you, Zilla, you are merely an usher. You have no right to interfere.”

“And might I remind you, Death, that I am no longer beholden to you,” I said. “You and the government of the day granted me emancipation.”

“Emancipation is not a free reign to do entirely as you please. You still have your duties.”

“My duty is to guide the dead to you, not to stand back and watch while you kill them. You shouldn’t _be_ killing them; you’re meant only to take those who have already died in this world. That’s the whole point of me bringing them to you!”

Death seemed to shrink in front of me, for he must surely have known I was right. I stumbled over his expression for a moment; was there a reason he was doing this? It made me wonder what in the world he was doing this for. Now was not the time, though.

A shrill tone broke through our stares, and we both looked around at Jacintha. Her mobile phone was ringing. She gazed blankly at the screen. All I could do was stride over and see who called her; to my relief, it was Ruth. With my hand on Jacintha’s head, I whispered, “Answer it. She’s worried about you.”

Jacintha started. Though she was somewhat accustomed to hearing Death, to hear me must have come as a shock. She jumped to her feet and turned around to look for the voice, but she could not see me.

The ringing stopped.

Quiet descended upon us again. Death seemed confused, but for why I could not say.

“Who’s there?” Jacintha called out. Her voice shook as violently as her hands. “What do you want?”

I said nothing. It was best that she believed she imagined my voice.

When she stood still, I touched her hand. “Call her back. Get her to pick you up.”

Her fingers tapped at the screen of her phone, and I heard the dial tone as she put it to her ear. “Hello, love,” Ruth said to Jacintha. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” said Jacintha. “But could you pick me up, please?”

“Of course. Where are ya?”

“The bench outside the church.” How easily this girl could tell a lie as she packed her bottle and pills into her backpack and headed out towards the edge of the woods. Death and I followed her, keeping a safe distance behind.

I turned my head and look at Death as we walked. Why was he following this girl? “What’s the story?” I asked abruptly.

“Story?” he answered. “What story? There is no story.”

“The last time you set out to hide things from me, you very nearly lost the war. What is going on?”

He kept his head down, probably unimpressed at the reminder that the whole system had been almost completely broken by us all those years ago. “You know,” I continued, “it _was_ three hundred years ago. We’ve all moved on.”

“Some of them haven’t.”

“Who?”

“Those who would attempt to seize control of the Grave for their own,” he said darkly. “Our brothers are…well, let’s just say they’re currently discontented.”

I let out a sigh. “Aren’t they always?”

“They’ve convinced Father they would do my job better,” he said, “and that it’s worth the risk to try it.”

Frowning, I stopped walking. Father was in prison and had no business interfering from his cell. He stopped, too, when he realised he walked alone. “What has that got to do with this human?”

“Father says I must find a human to take for my own. Prove that I am up to the job of collecting the dead.”

“Father is wrong,” I replied flatly. “You’re supposed to collect humans who have died, not kill them yourself. He’s trying to oust you.”

We resumed our following of Jacintha, through the woods to the main path along the river. “I know he never did think I was suitable to succeed him.”

“Maybe if he hadn’t been so greedy, he could have kept the job himself,” I said harshly. “That’s his own fault. He only wants the other two to take over because they’re just like him. And you can’t go killing humans like this just to prove him wrong. That just makes you as bad as him.”

Jacintha climbed the path towards the main road; her breath hovered in clouds before her, water condensing in the December night. “What else am I to do?” asked Death. “They will not relent until I bring them a human.”

“You can’t kill her!”

“Do you think I _want_ to kill her?”

I faltered. I did not think that. I knew my brother better than that. The other two, the younger two, I knew had their own version of morality. It was thanks to them that I demanded emancipation; I couldn’t tolerate their sheer unpleasantness any longer. But Death, the only one I willingly called my brother, was of better character.

“Don’t you see what they’re doing?”

Death stared at me blankly. I rolled my eyes; it could be frustrating to always have to be the brains.

“They’re setting you up,” I explained. “Fail to bring them the human, they will say you are too weak to keep your position. Bring them the human, and they will say you have breached the Code of Collection. Either way, they will try to overthrow you.”

“I am making sure I don’t breach the Code. It doesn’t specifically prohibit enticement.”

“It also does not specifically allow it. They are trying to make it look like you’ve breached the Code.”

“But if they have their way, _they_ will be breaching the Code of Collection.”

“They would change the Code, like Father tried to,” I said. “The difference is, between the two of them, they might actually get it through this time.” 


	2. Chapter 2

Jacintha, in the passenger seat of Ruth’s car, was silent.

To look at Ruth, I would have bargained that she knew something was amiss, but was unsure of exactly what it was. Perhaps I ought to have told her where I have just found Jacintha, but was it my place? I glanced around at Death; he sat in the seat behind Ruth, quiet and subdued. It was obvious that he was considering his position, and that he now understood the complexity of the situation. This was the whole Máel Muire debacle all over again, except Death himself was now the target for removal.

It was a coup. I’d seen plenty in my time collecting humans in this world. I had even been caught up in one myself. Politicians were particularly guilty of it. The military, too. I had seen it happen in families, but never like in what I was obliged to call my kin. I’d never seen a family tear itself apart with the welfare of a world reliant on the outcome.

“Are you alright, love?” Ruth asked Jacintha.

Jacintha’s grip on her backpack tightened, her arms hiding its contents with an almost jealous determination. Ruth noticed. That much was clear in the way she looked at Jacintha.

“Yeah,” Jacintha said with a smile. “Yeah, I’m grand.”

Death finally turned to look at me. “Why won’t she tell the woman?”

At that, I frowned at him. “Do you know humans at all?” I asked him. “Don’t you remember when you did my job?”

He stared down at the back of Ruth’s seat. Had he really been Death so long that he had forgotten how humans lived? Their misguided attempts at survival, the walls that only served to trap them in their own heads? Three hundred years – the blink of an eye to us – surely could not have made human behaviour such a distant memory to him.

“It’s been a while,” he admitted. “They’ve changed.”

“Not all that much.”

Ruth stopped the car outside the house. Jacintha turned to open the passenger side door, but Ruth took her hand to stop her. Jacintha froze, but did not face Ruth. “I can tell there’s something wrong,” Ruth said. “Or do you think I’m stupid enough not to see it?”

“You’re not stupid. I know that,” Jacintha assured her.

“What’s happened?”

“Nothing’s happened, Ruth. I’m grand.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

Ruth let out a heavy sigh of resignation. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Nothing to help with,” Jacintha replied with a shrug of her shoulders.

The smile of Ruth’s face was one of sadness. “Mind yourself, won’t you?”

“Always do.”

A barefaced lie, and Ruth had to know it. Like Jacintha just said, Ruth was far from stupid. They got out the car; Death and I melted through the car doors and ran to the house so we didn’t have to do the same at the front door. Like water through a sieve, my corpse seemed to be strained through a million tiny holes until I was outside. The sensation was one I’d hated since the day of my death, and I avoided melting as much as I possibly could.

The house was warm. Welcoming, even to the dead.

In the living room, Death stood next to me, uncomfortable in a human home, by the look of him. In fairness, human homes had changed in the last three centuries, not least with the discovery of electricity. Transfixed, he stared into the television. “They watch stories on that,” I told him. “You can get news and music and all sorts on it.”

“How bizarre,” he said. “Do they still have books?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but Ruth called from the kitchen to Jacintha, “D’you want a cup of tea, love?”

“I’ll come and get something.”

I followed Jacintha through to the kitchen; she pulled her hoodie tightly around herself as my presence cooled the air. Ruth watched her as she pushed up her sleeves and poured herself vodka and cola. It couldn’t be clearer in her face that she was worried that Jacintha was drinking while so obviously not herself. She placed a gentle hand on Jacintha’s shoulder; for the first time since calling her, Jacintha met Ruth’s gaze.

Death appeared at my side. “I’d forgotten how human minds work,” he whispered.

“What?” Jacintha asked Ruth, her tone brusque and forbidding.

Ruth took Jacintha’s left arm, but the girl immediately pulled away. “What’s that on your wrist?”

“Just a rash.”

“That’s a very odd looking rash,” Ruth said. “I’ve never seen a rash come up in a square like that.”

Jacintha took her drink and walked away. My stomach twisted into the same knot hers surely was now tied. Ruth’s face drained a shade of white to rival mine. While Death chose to trail after Jacintha, I remained with Ruth. She ran her hand through her steely hair and looked up to the ceiling, her eyes filled with tears she knew she could not possibly shed. “God love her,” she whispered to herself.

She sat down at the kitchen table, her face in her hands. After seeing her bluntness and her impatience, it was quite disconcerting to see her reaction to this. When she pulled her head from her hands and I caught a glimpse of her expression, I realised what drove her anguish: she was imagining what it was to live Jacintha’s life, a slave to a mind that would sooner see her body damaged than have her admit to her own pain.

I almost touched her; if I touched her, she would have heard me. A perceptive woman like her might even have seen me with a mere touch. The last thing I wanted was to frighten her when she was already shaken. Though I wished her to hear me, seeing me might tip her into madness.

“Don’t do that to yourself, Ruth,” I whispered.

Ruth turned around and stared at me, though I knew she could not see me. Had she heard what I said? Or had she merely sensed that she might not be as alone as she had presumed?

“You know her. You know her better than most people ever get the chance to,” I said. “She trusts you.”

She gazed through me; perhaps she did not hear me, but she knew I was there. Or, at the very least, she knew something was there.

Death returned to me. “Zilla,” he said quietly, “I think she’s going to die tonight.”

“What?”

“I can feel it,” he told me. “I don’t know how but I can feel her soul dying.” As he said it, I realised why he told me: he did not want Jacintha to die from this. Whether he desired this for Jacintha’s sake or his own, I had no way of knowing. I would have so loved to believe that he wanted what is best for the human concerned, but he’d been so long out of this world that I struggled with the concept.

With nothing else I could do, I touched Ruth’s hand. She jumped and stared up at me. I was right; she could see me. “Ruth,” I called out quietly to her. “Jacintha needs you.”

Despite her fright, Ruth got to her feet without a second thought. “Jacintha,” Ruth said as she crossed into the living room. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Jacintha said; her smile was forced and pained, and there was no way Ruth would ever miss that.

“Your wrist-”

“It’s just a rash.”

Ruth took a steadying breath. “Jacintha, are you cutting yourself?”

“What? No!”

“Do you think I’m stupid?” she asked for a second time this evening.

“Of course I don’t think you’re stupid. How could I ever think that?”

I watched intently. Next to me, Death was fascinated by these two humans and their interactions. He’d spent too long in eternal isolation from the species to which we once belonged.

Ruth leaned forwards slightly. “No rash comes up in a square like that,” she said. “You _know_ I’m not stupid.” Jacintha looked away, ashamed and embarrassed. “I’m not fightin’ with you, love.”

This persuaded Jacintha to look back around at Ruth. “You’re not angry with me?” She appeared to be genuinely surprised by Ruth’s reaction. What exactly had she been expecting? Hellfire? Damnation?

“Why would I be angry?”

Jacintha could not find an answer to that question. Her cold resolve collapsed under Ruth’s scrutiny. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice nearly silent. “I’m sorry for being-”

“Don’t be daft.” Ruth pulled Jacintha in her arms and held her so tight I wondered how either one of them breathed. “Poor girl,” she murmured into her ear. Jacintha’s breath caught as she put her face in Ruth’s shoulder and tried to keep her pain inside. Ruth hushed her, holding back her own tears all the while.

Death sat down in the unoccupied armchair opposite the two humans. “She might survive the night.” Though he had not spent time among humans for centuries and was rusty in his knowledge of their idiosyncrasies, he still could read their souls as deeply as ever, even if their motivations and interactions were a mystery to him these days. He looked from the humans to me. “This is my fault. I kept pushing her and pushing her until she got like this.”

I refused to absolve him of his wrongdoing, for Jacintha might not have been in such an awful position had Death not been hissing her own death wish into her ear. However, I did know he never chose to be put in a position where this was even an option. “What are you going to do about it?”

“What can I do?” he snapped.

“The right thing.”

And then I was forced to ask myself, did he even know what the right thing was anymore? He had spent too long with Father and our brothers in the confines of the Grave. Was he able to discern right from wrong?

We watched in the ear-splitting quiet while Ruth and Jacintha held onto one another for dear life. Neither would let the other see their sadness, yet Ruth cried in silence while Jacintha could not see her. Over Jacintha’s shoulder, she looked dazedly across the room to where I stood. I was quite sure she could not see me, for she seemed to look straight through me, but she knew something was there, where I stood. Why else would she have set her eyes here?

* * *

We sat in Ruth’s living room, wondering what the hell we were supposed to do. In normal circumstances, we would have called it a near miss and simply left, but these circumstances were far from normal. This human’s current state was partly a result of the turmoil in our world, not merely her own.

Ruth, however, had barely moved since Jacintha departed for bed.

Was it horror at the realisation of how Jacintha was feeling, or was it the shock of having seen me again? Forty years was a long gap between appearances for the living, and I was sure I looked just the same now as I did then. To dismiss me a second time would not be easy for Ruth to do; she would want to believe in what she saw, no matter how absurd it appeared to be.

It crossed my mind that perhaps I should show myself once more, just to let her know that she hadn’t gone entirely mad. It broke all the rules I have ever made for my own conduct.

“No,” Death said firmly. I looked up at him, startled. “I know what you’re thinking. Don’t do it.”

“Why not?”

“You know it is not permitted.”

“I think the rules might have gone out the window when Father challenged you to kill a human, don’t you?” I retorted. “Anyway, he’s confined to barracks. He would never know.”

He considered that for a moment. Anyone else would be trying to talk themselves out of rebellion, but I knew my brother was probably talking himself into it. Though he played by the rules, he hated the laws introduced before his time. Any opportunity to undo his predecessor’s influence would be a wrench for him to resist.

“It could cause no end to trouble.”

“I’d love nothing more, if I’m honest.”

“You are so predictable, Zilla, do you know that?”

I elected to ignore that particular remark. “Are you really okay with what’s been going on?”

“Don’t be so ridiculous,” he snapped irritably. “I’m not like him.”

“Did I say you were?”

Ruth was almost catatonic. She stared through the television and failed to take in a single word. “Maybe we ought to do something,” Death said. Even he was disturbed by Ruth’s mindless gaze. “She looks like she’s lost her mind.”

“She hasn’t. She’s just…”

I never finished that sentence. Finding the right word was an impossible task.

Death clicked his fingers. The television cut out. It was the only source of light in the room, and Ruth was left in a swamp of darkness. “For God’s sake!” Ruth half-shouted. She began to get to her feet. I reached over and turn on the nearest lamp. In the sudden but muted light, Ruth froze. “What’s goin’ on?”

The only place I could look to was Death; he started this by interfering with the television. I knew if I let myself be seen, Ruth might cause a commotion, which then would get Jacintha and Marjorie out of bed – the last thing anyone in this house wanted.

She looked about ready to throw a fit anyway, regardless of what else she saw. Her face drained a ghostly shade of white, her eyes wide and fearful. It was quite something, to see Ruth frightened. “We shouldn’t have done that,” I whispered to Death, like the volume of my voice made any difference to the silence humanity heard from us.

Ruth practically dived across the room and switched on the living room light. There was a terror that did not seem to fit her face, like she had never been so scared, nor would she ever be again.

“What the bleedin’ hell is this?!” Ruth called out. “Who’s messin’?”

I stood up and faced her.

Should I do it?

Should I show myself?

I looked at Death. Could he, for once, just tell me the right thing to do?

The decision was mine, though, and he would not make it for me.

There was only one thing left for me to do. I took Ruth’s hands in mine. Within a single moment, she let out a yelp and jumped backwards. “What the-” she started to shout.

I made sure to signal for her quiet, and I said, “Careful. Don’t wake Jacintha or Marjorie.”

“Who – _what_ – are you?!” she demanded, though she managed not to raise her voice this time.

“My name is Zilla,” I informed her, “and I know that Jacintha almost died tonight.”

“What?”

“She planned to take her own life. It is not her fault, but perhaps you should keep an eye on her.”

“Bloody hell.” Ruth ran her hands over her face and back through her hair. “I thought she seemed a bit off but I didn’t think she’d want to die!”

“I’m not sure she does want to die.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I believe she wants her current existence to end, but I don’t think she wants to die.”

“Same thing, isn’t it?”

“Not at all. There is a chance to helping someone who doesn’t actually want to die.”

Ruth’s balance wavered, so I caught her by the arm. “This is mad.” She said it like it would make me disappear, like if she told herself this is madness, it would convince her she imagined it. She had imagined me once, and obviously she imagined me again. Except she didn’t imagine me then, and she hadn’t this time, either. If she chose to believe it this time, it was a choice to delude herself.

“Mad it might be,” I said gently, “but do you really believe I am lying to you?”

That was the thing about Ruth. As reactionary and emotional as she could sometimes be, she did think. She considered the possibilities, even if she chose to ignore some of them in favour of letting her anger or frustration be known. It was an informed choice most of the time.

“I know this must sound bizarre-”

“It’s bleedin’ nuts!”

“But I am real, and I am serious in what I tell you of Jacintha.”

Death stood next to Ruth, but kept himself out of sight. I gestured from him to Ruth; he shook his head. It seemed he was not quite as rebellious as I had been hoping. “Who’s there?” Ruth demanded as she looked over her shoulder for another being. “Who’re you speaking to?”

I raised my eyebrows at Death. He had to do it sometimes. The brave thing. The kind thing. I’d known him to be brave, be kind, but he seemed to have lost it with age, perhaps toughened by tragedy in this world and havoc in our own. The coup I helped to trigger hit him hard. He was faced with responsibilities he had never anticipated; after all, who could have ever envisioned our Father relinquishing his power to the only son who stands against him? Death never believed he would end up with this, and so was never prepared for it. That was one of the few things about my decision that I regretted. It hurt the only one I would have chosen as a brother.

“Death is next to you, on your right,” I told Ruth. Though I said it quite calmly, Ruth immediately darted leftwards.

“I won’t let you take her,” Ruth warned. Her voice trembled, but her words were not to be argued with.

“We have no intention of taking her unless she dies of human causes. We do not kill.”

“Then why are you here?”

At this question, I faltered. Was I to say that, due to the politics of our world, Death had been attempting to entice Jacintha to take her own life? She would never trust anything we said if we told her that, and yet that was the truth. I gestured to Death again in a plea for him to swallow whatever was stopping him from showing himself and help me out here. Ruth’s head whipped around to her right, to the empty air occupied by Death.

“This has got to be some kind of joke,” Ruth said. “There’s no way in-”

Death’s hand fell onto Ruth’s shoulder. She almost screamed but put her hands to her mouth to contain the sound. I knew why; humans had their own lore of us, which often included tales that they would die if touched by Death. While we knew very well that was utter nonsense, Ruth did not.

“Please remain calm,” Death said imploringly.

I winced at his words, my prediction fulfilled when Ruth’s hands fell from in front of her mouth. “ _Calm_?!” she snarled at him, barely audible and yet deafening. “The pair of you break into my house, tell me my friend almost died, tell me you’re Death and Christ only knows who!” she ranted, her arm waving wildly out in my direction. Death stepped back; Ruth advanced on him with every inch he retreated. “And you have the nerve to tell me to _remain calm_?!”

The expression of shock on Death’s face put me in serious danger of laughing at precisely the wrong moment. How did he expect Ruth to react to being told to keep calm? He really had been away from humans for far too long if he didn’t know better than to say that to her.

He looked helplessly at me. “I’m with the human on this one,” I said, trying to keep the amusement out of my voice. “You can’t just appear in her home and then tell her to calm down.”

“What else do you suggest I say to her?”

“Anything but that.”

“So many rules,” he muttered to himself.

Ruth observed us. I could find the curiosity mingled with her fear and indignance now. “You two are brother and sister,” she said slowly.

“How do you deduce that?” asked Death.

She shrugged her shoulders. “It’s obvious.”

That answered absolutely nothing. It was only then that it occurred to me that she was playing us at our own game. The game we invented centuries – millennia – ago. “We’ve gone off-topic,” I cut in, mostly to prevent Death from opening his mouth to demand an expansion on those two words. “You must trust us, Ruth.”

A hollow, derisive laugh echoed through the room. “Give me one good reason to trust you.”

“It is in nobody’s interests for Jacintha to die.”

“Of course it’s in your interests!” Ruth retorted. “You get another person to take to…wherever the hell you take them!”

“It really does not work like that,” Death said. I could not tell if his goal was to come across as reassuring or firm; to me he just sounded a little annoyed. “We have strict laws that govern how and when we guide humans into the next world, if they should choose to move on from Earth.”

Ruth looked at him from under her eyebrows. He seemed to ball up like a frightened hedgehog. How funny, that Death would be so intimidated by a fairly small human in her sixties. I relished that I was no longer the only woman he would be quite happy to run away from. Knowing him, if he were here alone, he would have bolted the moment Ruth objected to being told to stay calm. “Well, then, smart arse, tell me how it does work,” she says.

I stifled a laugh. To see Death, the being in control of the next world, startled by an average human, it was quite hilarious. He had no idea how to react. What could he say to this one that wouldn’t have her shouting at him again? She was obviously very sharp, and far from inclined to take prisoners. And really, why would she give either one of us any leniency? If the roles were reversed, I would probably have done the same, though perhaps not as ferociously as Ruth.

“The law is complicated,” he said.

“I’m sure my poor little brain can handle it.”

“The main thing that governs us is Amendment Four of the Code of Collection. It states that I, or anyone working in my name, may guide a dead human to our world, but we cannot take their life or cause another human to take that human’s life,” he explained, his tone as bored as if he were reciting something he already knew for the millionth time. “So you see, we _can’t_ kill Jacintha. We should not keep her alive either. We are to remain without preference.”

“If you were being impartial, you wouldn’t be standing here right now,” said Ruth. “So what exactly is going on?”

There was no way out of this, was there? She would not allow us to obfuscate.

“I’m not going to give anyone a history lesson,” snapped Death. He could be such a grouch.

“Very helpful,” I said impatiently. I turned to Ruth. “There is an endless story behind our politics, but the long and short of it is that our father once was Death but he misbehaved. I got him kicked out, and Reuben here,” I gestured towards my brother, “became Death.”

“What has this got to do with Jacintha?”

“Our brothers would like to overthrow Death.”

“Still nothing to do with Jacintha.”

I caught Death’s eye, but he didn’t seem capable of being any help. “Death made a mistake,” I began, cautious not to get Ruth’s back up, but unsure as to how best to explain what happened. “He was asked to prove himself worthy of his role by taking a human from their life.”

“And you picked Jacintha?” Ruth looked around and glared at Death. “Why her?”

“She was susceptible.” As soon as the words left his mouth, it was obvious he had said the wrong thing.

“You mean she was depressed and you decided she would be an easy target!” She stepped towards him and, again, he hastily retreated. “You picked a vulnerable young woman and tried to get her to kill herself, just to shut your brothers and your father up, didn’t you?”

“It sounds horrendous when you put it like-”

“That’s because it is horrendous!” Ruth looked like she might gleefully strangle Death, so I put myself between the two of them. “It’s your fault that she’s got this bad!”

“Jacintha was already considering dying,” I said fairly, “otherwise neither of us would have been summoned to her.”

“You didn’t help, though! You’ve just made it all so much worse. That poor girl is suicidal because you encouraged it!”

Death held his hands in the air. “I am sorry,” he said. He was sincere – it was completely obvious in his tone – but Ruth was too livid to take note of that.

“What good is an apology? It gets us nowhere!”

“Us?” I asked carefully.

“Yes, us!” Ruth growled. “You’re gonna put this right and I will watch you until you do!”

“You don’t understand,” Death said. “Jacintha was already unwell. She contemplated killing herself with no input from me. Nothing we do can change that.”

Ruth, with terror in her eyes, opened the door and climbed the stairs; Death and I followed her carefully to Jacintha’s bedroom door, where she stood and watched her friend sleeping in the half-light provided from the landing light. She breathed softly, her chest and shoulders moving under the duvet. “She’s okay just now, Ruth,” I said. “She’s sleeping. That’s all.”

In the next bedroom, Marjorie snored loudly. Ruth turned and looked from us to Marjorie’s bedroom door and back again. “You’ve not been at Mam as well, have you?” she whispered.

“Not at all,” I said solemnly. “We have no reason to interact with her.”

Ruth looked back at a sleeping Jacintha. “I love ya, kid,” she said gently.

“She loves you as well, you know,” I murmured. “I know she’s not one for saying it, but she does love you. Knowing it would hurt you was one of the few things that stopped her from dying.”


	3. Chapter 3

“This is ridiculous,” Ruth spat out. We found ourselves in her kitchen, watching on while she drank vodka and cola, just as Jacintha did earlier. “What are you going to do about it?”

“What can we do about it?” Death answered. “It was an error of judgement on my part-”

“Understatement of the century,” Ruth said tetchily.

“-but she is safe and well in your home now.”

Ruth’s head snapped up so she could scowl at him. “She might be safe for tonight, but she is most definitely not _well_.” She looked at me and asked, jabbing her thumb towards Death, “Is he always this thick?”

I could not help but let out a chuckle. “He hasn’t dealt with human beings for a few centuries,” I said. “I think he’s forgotten how to speak to people who have someone to lose.”

“Jaysus, I’d have to throttle him.”

“Don’t think I’ve never been tempted.”

It raised an unwilling smile from Ruth, and an affronted glare from Death. “Needs a kick in the arse, that one,” she muttered into her glass. “Feckin’ eejit.”

Death shook his head to himself; he clearly considered himself victimised.

“And what about you?” Ruth said to me. “What will you do about the situation your brother is in?”

“It is not my place to interfere with that.”

“Well, you’re gonna have to something about it,” she said matter-of-factly, “if not for your own sake then for ours. It’s not really fair to let our next world – the one _you_ take us to – go up in flames.”

“You do get a choice, you know. Plenty of humans choose to remain on Earth after they die,” Death said quietly. “We don’t drag you by the scruff of the neck.”

“I’d like to see you try,” she said scornfully.

Death gazed feebly at me. Ruth was letting him away with nothing and, though it made our predicament more complicated to solve, I was glad that someone was holding us to account for our actions. It was refreshing to find someone who questioned our authority. We could have easily written her off as a naïve and ignorant human but, whatever else she might have been, Ruth was neither one of those things. She was insightful enough to know when I lied and when I skirted around her already. Another twenty-four hours and she would have me totally figured out.

It was probably best to give Ruth some of the truth. “Each time she seriously considers dying, I will be summoned. I know you don’t want to hear this, but I’ve been called out to Jacintha four times now, and each time she is closer to doing it, without any influence from my brother.”

“She’s not gonna die,” Ruth said. Anyone who heard her might have believed she had control over what happened to Jacintha. “She can’t. For God’s sake, she’s only twenty-four.”

“Age does not come into this, Ruth. I think you know that better than most.”

Her eyes closed for just a moment. “What do we do?” she asked once more.

“There is very little we can do,” Death sighed. “I will, of course, stop my interaction with Jacintha, but she was and still is an unwell woman.”

Ruth looked daggers at Death again. I stared into floor beneath me, wondering if there was another way to deal with this. There were things we could do. Risky, dangerous, foolhardy things. It could kill Jacintha and Ruth, or doom Death and me for eternity; considering Ruth’s priority was avoiding Jacintha’s demise, I didn’t really see why she would agree to anything that might endanger her.

If we were brave, we could save Jacintha and Death in one go. If we were smart, we could show Ruth and Jacintha all they would ever need to know, and bring ourselves back from the brink of another political war. The problem was I did not feel very brave or very smart; I hadn’t trusted my instincts in three hundred years. I needed my freedom, but when I was given it I chose to use it to play by the rules. After all, the law had been such a huge part of the reform. To flout it would have been idiotic.

Only when Ruth set her gaze upon me did I remember that we had already broken all the rules as it was. We were standing in a house, talking to a human who was not about to die, about the state of our world and the condition of her friend who did nearly die tonight. She already knew far more than she ought to have ever discovered. How much harm could it do just to come clean about our options? The methods we could use that would involve Jacintha and Ruth were unconventional, perhaps, but we could never silence Petrie, Ernest and Benjamin without a little eccentricity. They would never expect for even a moment that we would have had the nerve to bring living humans into this.

Death’s eyes narrowed suspiciously at me; I was his only sister, and so he knew when I was plotting and scheming. “You’ve come up with a very bad idea, haven’t you?” he asked. He sounded weary. Almost bored. “See, this is why I gave you emancipation without a fight: at least you’re accountable for your own bad ideas.”

“Not all my ideas are bad,” I reminded him.

“Oh, no, they only start civil war,” he sniggered.

“Better than trying to torment a human to death.”

“Excellent point,” Ruth said, lifting the vodka bottle in agreement as she poured herself another drink. “Worst plan ever.”

“We could take them,” I said slowly, “and bring them back.”

“No way!” Death shouted. “You know we might not be able to bring them back. What if something happens to them over there and they die in our world? Have you any idea the chaos that would cause?”

“Think about it. They would have no way of knowing they’re alive. We look the same.”

“They would have beating hearts and breathing lungs! Of course they’d know!”

“How can you be sure of that if we’ve never tried bringing the living over? If they hold their breath and we get them in that space between heartbeats, they’d be silent.”

Ruth put the vodka bottle back into the cupboard. “You’re mad. Insane, the pair of you,” she said. “You want to save Jacintha by killing her?”

“We wouldn’t kill her,” I said quickly. “Or you. We would catch you in that split second before the action that incites your deaths.”

I wondered if Ruth understood what we were saying. Though more intuitive than most, she was still only human, and therefore was subject to human limitations. Her mind would struggle to comprehend that death was not always permanent. We kept that secret to ourselves, for it would cause humans more harm than good if they were to ever find out. “You’re talking like you’re gonna kill me, too,” she said.

“You misunderstand.”

“Do I?” she asked through gritted teeth.

Unlike Death, I was not frightened by Ruth. I had experienced that same frustration so many times myself that I understood how she must have felt. “Yes. You would not have to die at all. We would take you through our own route.”

“I’m sensing a ‘but’ here.”

“But…if you were to die on our side, you would die on Earth, too.”

“We don’t know that,” my brother murmured. I looked up at him. “We are able to go between dimensions without coming to harm. We’re dead on Earth but we live in the Grave. Who’s to say it wouldn’t be the same in reverse?”

“Why should I put myself and Jacintha in any danger at all, just to help you solve whatever problems you’ve got yourselves into, anyway?”

“If our brothers usurp Death,” I said quietly, “they’ll do much more than tempt Jacintha with death. They’ll drive her mad. They’ll take humans with no provocation.”

“What?”

Death leaned back against the kitchen counter. “Three hundred years ago, we had our first female Chief Minister,” he began. “You might have heard of her actually. Máel Muire ingen Cináeda. She was a Princess of Scotland and a Queen of Ireland.”

“Ninth century,” Ruth said with a solemn nod.

“Exactly. Well, at the time, our father was Death. He tried to force a change in the law that would allow humans to be taken by force or coercion. It would have taken your last Earthly choice from you. There were other crimes he had committed, too, and Máel Muire and my sister here had him detained. The role of Death fell to me, and I vowed I would never do what my father had done. My brothers, though, they are more like him. They would reinstate old practices and try to force through that same change in the law. If that happens, there are circumstances in which they _could_ kill you. If and when you die, you would be taken without your consent. You would not have the option to linger on Earth.”

Ruth remained silent for a few moments. Maybe her brain wasn’t working as fast as it usually would, now that she’d had a drink. In those moments, though, she made for her cigarettes. “Christ, if anybody walked in on me now, they’d think I’ve lost the plot,” she grumbled. “There’s so many holes in this plan, I could use it as a sieve.”

Death smirked and withheld a cackle.

I passed him a venomous look and said to Ruth, “It’s just an idea, not a plan.”

“It relies on me being with Jacintha when she wants to die,” Ruth pointed out. “She’s hardly about to off herself in front of me, is she?”

“That’s a valid point,” Death said fairly. “That isn’t going to work.”

“I wonder,” I said slowly. “I wonder what we can do. We have the most freedom of anyone in our realm, and yet we have never tried to discover the limits. Not even before the takeover. The chances of us getting away with it before were slim to none,” I said scathingly. “Can you imagine how he would have reacted?”

Death gave an involuntary shudder at the very memory of our father’s temper. “I’d rather not, if it’s all the same to you.”

Ruth took another mouthful from her glass. “That bad, was he?”

“He wasn’t tried and imprisoned for no reason, you know,” I replied. “He was sending children to do this job.”

“Kids? To accompany the dead?”

“Orphaned kids. Well, children who died before there was anyone to take care of them in our world. They were kept in servitude to Death until someone claimed them.”

“Jesus,” Ruth exhaled sharply. “He needs a good box in the ear.”

“I’m sure he got it from a few disgruntled relatives when they got hold of him,” Death said, his tone hollow.

I could not help it. I laughed. “Never mind them, I gave him a thump the last time I saw him.” It sounded sour and spiteful but I would never deny it. “He had the nerve to tell me I brought about his sentence. He didn’t need me to make it any worse; he did that to himself.”

“When was that?”

“1722.”

“Three hundred years is a long time to hold a grudge,” Ruth commented.

“Not when you’ve been dead a thousand years.”

“Fair enough,” she conceded. “But nobody is ever allowed to give out about me holding a grudge again.”

A silence followed. How were we going to do this? Ruth was right – the odds of Jacintha attempting to end her life in front of Ruth were astronomical. Did they even really need to be dying for me to take them? The fact that Ernest and Benjamin would have had the law changed suggested to me that they knew it did not work in quite the way we were told. I could try bringing Ruth over right now, but that was perilous. What if I couldn’t bring her back? She could die in the experiment. Where would that have left Jacintha? She would lose the one person who had half a chance at getting through to her.

I could not say for certain whether it was worth the risk. The damage it might do might be irreparable. Not just to Ruth and Jacintha, but to Marjorie too; she needed her daughter, no matter how much they infuriated one another. I could be responsible for the very crime I prevented my brother from committing this evening.

I sat down at the kitchen table opposite Ruth. “I could try something,” I began hesitantly, “but it would be risky. I don’t know if your heart would beat on our side, you see.”

“Jesus,” she muttered. “You’re cracked.”

“Just wait until you see the rest of them,” Death said darkly. “Even in peacetime.”

“And you want me to go with you,” Ruth said, a derisive smirk playing on her lips.

“Nobody is forcing you,” said Death. “It is entirely your decision.”

Ruth drained her glass and placed it firmly down on the table. “Fine,” she said. “Let’s get it over with, whatever it is.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“If I was sure, I’d be as mad as the two of you. Come on,” she sighed; she got to her feet. “We’ll try it.”

“Don’t you even want to know what the dangers are?”

“Nope.”

I glanced at Death. We could have been about to kill her and she didn’t seem to mind. She had made a choice, but it could never be labelled an informed one. “You wait here,” I told Death, “and we’ll be back in a minute, with any luck.”

He gave a sharp nod. I had no idea that Death could drain any whiter than he normally was, but he somehow managed it.

Ruth’s hand tightly in mine, I closed my eyes and said to her, “Hold your breath.” She looked at me like I had lost my mind. “It’s just a precaution.” The glass door turned to black fog in veins of darkness, spreading from the point where my fingers had touched the cold pane.

I guided Ruth through the dark veil of fog, wondering how the heaviness of the changing air felt on the face of a woman who still called the Earth her home.

“What the actual-” Ruth began breathlessly, but I didn’t let her finish.

“You’re okay, I think,” I said, cautiously optimistic that I had not killed her human body. I pressed my hand to her chest for a few seconds: her heart did beat, but at a fraction of its normal speed. I smiled. “Have you noticed?”

“Noticed what?”

“You’re not breathing,” I informed her. “You can speak and move but you haven’t taken a single breath. You don’t need to. Not here, anyway.”

Ruth did not seem to be listening to me, choosing instead to stare around herself with wide eyes. “It’s so…” she said, but evidently she could not find the words to describe what she saw.

“The sun turns gold here,” I said, mostly to confirm that her eyes were not lying to her. “We have many theories as to why, each as unlikely as the next. Many believe there is a being higher than us that graces us with golden skies. The scientist-types say it is a tint of metallic gold and silver in the our atmosphere, which causes the light to be discoloured. Nobody is quite sure, though I’d be inclined to trust the scientists.”

The woman was lost for words which, I noted, was probably a rare state for her to be in. She usually had no shortage of words. “Would you like to go home?” I asked her.

All she gave was a nod of her head.

Her hand in mine, I pulled us both through the same fog that brought us here; the air returned to its earthly density and my feet hit the hard tiled floor of Ruth’s kitchen. The husky outside let out a low moan as she watched us through the sliding glass door.

Death put his hand on Ruth’s chest; she batted him away indignantly. “Her heart is beating,” he said. There was an echo of dread in those words; if Ernest and Benjamin knew this, they could find ways to take humans without them even dying. This world would be thrown into a situation where bodies simply got lost in time, humans stuck in the moment at which they were taken. It would be utter chaos. Humans did not deal well with chaos, either. They were good at making chaos, yes, but they were hopeless when it came to facing the consequences.

“This is good,” I said brightly.

“And very bad,” Death replied. “Even if we can bring them over, what good will it do? If Ernest and Benjamin don’t already know it’s possible, they will when they see us do it. They could create entire armies of humans, who might simply drop dead here if they were killed on our end.”

“Well, that can’t happen,” Ruth said flatly. “Don’t you think we’ve got enough war of our own? And anyway, I don’t fancy dying twice.”

“None of us do.”

“What happens when you lot die, anyway? You said you’ve been dead a thousand years, but that must mean you’ve been alive a thousand years, too.”

“Nobody knows,” I admitted carefully. “We are far more robust than we were on Earth, but a soul can still be killed. Murder, manslaughter, war, suicide…” I trailed away, realising too late that the last means of death might have been a little bit of a touchy for Ruth. “We bury our dead.”

“But your bodies are still here, on Earth. Either your bones are in the ground or your ashes are. You can’t be buried twice.”

“You gain a second body when you leave Earth for our world,” Death says. “Much the same as your Earthly body, but your heart does not need to beat and you do not need to breathe. That’s why our bodies last longer than yours; they do not age. Only an external force – violence, an accident, suicide – will break us.”

“How can you die if your heart isn’t beating?”

“You think of death in human terms,” I said. “Death to you is when the heart stops beating. When I die, it will be because this body can no longer carry my soul. A body can be broken in so many ways, Ruth, and a soul in infinitely more.” She stared at me. Though a fraction of my age, this woman was probably wiser than I ever had been. “But I think you know that, young as you are.”

Ruth gave a snort of laughter. “The one thing I’m not is young,” she replied. “Jacintha, _she_ is young. I’m sixty. I’ve lived more than half of my life.”

“Only in this existence,” Death said casually. “You may have another millennium in you.”

“Christ, don’t say that,” she muttered.

The glance I shared with Death was cautious; could it be that Ruth was walking the same fine line as Jacintha? Perhaps they suffered on similar tightropes, though Ruth kept her balance better.

When she looked back at me, however, she had the appearance of a woman who had a plan. “That’s it,” she said quietly. “That’s how we can stop her.”

“What?” asked Death, patently as confused as I was.

“Jacintha. She’s not gonna want to kill herself if she knows it doesn’t end everything. Either way, she’ll go with you or stay here, but she won’t be dead, not in the way she thinks.”

“We can’t do that,” I said. “It’s one thing to let her in on our existence, but, ‘Don’t commit suicide because your existence won’t end,’ that’s a step too far. It would screw her up!”

“She wants to die! She’s already screwed up!”

“She can recover from what she’s going through now. Who knows what saying that would do to her? She’d feel trapped, and she would blame you, Ruth.”

“She can blame me if she wants,” Ruth snarled, “if it keeps her safe!”

Death stepped in between us and calmly said, “Did you learn nothing from tonight? Jacintha _needs_ you. You’re one of the few people she trusts not to judge her for what she’s going through.”

“Rubbish,” scoffed Ruth. “She’s an intelligent girl. She knows she shouldn’t be judged-”

“She doesn’t know that at all,” Death said patiently. “Why else would she be surprised you’re not angry with her for hurting herself?”

My hand fell onto my brother’s arm; he took the hint and shuffled over to let me stand at his side. “Jacintha is an intelligent young woman,” I agreed with Ruth. “She’s smart, sensible, compassionate…except when she’s dealing with herself. I’ve seen how she treats you and I’ve seen how she treats herself – it’s not even remotely close.”

As far as I could tell, Ruth had nothing to say about that. Or she did, and was unwilling to say it to us.

Death, though, still had something to say. “I don’t want to upset Jacintha’s head either,” he said, “but she’s already pretty much as bad as she can be, isn’t she? Knowing she will continue into another realm might deter her from ending this life – or trying to, anyway.”

“Or it she might think, ‘Stuff it, maybe I’ll be less miserable in a different dimension,’ and try it anyway,” I said waspishly. “It’s-”

“The only thing we can do,” Death cut through me. “We’ve both already spoken to Jacintha, and Ruth has seen us. We can’t do nothing about our situation, either. We can save the Grave, the Earth and Jacintha, all at once.”

“Or destroy all three!”

Ruth finally opened her mouth and spoke. “I won’t allow anything to happen to Jacintha,” she said. “Do not involve her in your political train wreck.”

It was a stalemate. Death wanted to take the risk. I did not want to alert Jacintha to what happened to human souls when their bodies died here. There was no hope of success without taking her, though; we would need her to verify she was suicidal before Death went anywhere near her. I could vouch for the fact but Benjamin and Ernest would only dismiss me as an ally of my brother.

* * *

A dull thud from upstairs broke the silence in the kitchen. Drawn to Jacintha once more, I found I was halfway up the stairs before I knew where I was going. This time, Death followed me to the dying woman, but so did Ruth. Jacintha’s secret was about to be blown apart in such a brutal fashion, and there was nothing I could do to prevent it from happening.

In Jacintha’s bedroom, lit by the moonbeams through the open shutters, she sat on the edge of her bed, popping pills out of their blister packs. “Jacintha?” Ruth asked in a hoarse whisper. She closed the bedroom door and turned the light on. “What are you doing?”

“Headache,” she replied, far too quickly.

Ruth raised an eyebrow. “Then you only need two of them, not two dozen.”

Jacintha seemed to turn to stone, her eyes on the fistful of pills in her own hand. I glanced at Death; he was horrified. Ashamed that he had played any part in the condition of this young human. I could tell from the darkness in his eyes. Ruth crossed the room in two strides. She knelt down in front of Jacintha, her hands on that hopeless face.

“What’re you doin’?!” she snarled, out of panic more than anger. “You daft girl!” She shook Jacintha’s face slightly, probably unaware of the grip she had. “You don’t need to do that, my girl.”

The bottle of vodka lay on the floor; it must have fallen over, and would account for the thump that led us to this room. Ruth pulled herself up and sat next to Jacintha on the bed. She wrestled Jacintha’s hands open until the pills fell and bounced on the floor, scattering in all directions. “I’m sorry,” Jacintha moaned softly. “I’m sorry.”

Ruth, looking up at me, held Jacintha to her chest. I knew what she was trying to tell me: Jacintha had so little left to lose, perhaps it was best to follow the plan I regretted voicing. She already was at the lowest point there was. What could make it any worse than this?

I gave her a single nod. “Hold your breath, love,” Ruth said to Jacintha.

Jacintha looked up, her head still pressed into Ruth’s neck. Her breath caught in time with Ruth’s. I took Jacintha by the wrist, and Death took Ruth. I blackened the bedroom door and we led the living from their world. In the microsecond between their world and mine, I gripped my brother’s hand like there was nothing else for me to hold. What were we doing? This was madness. The whole thing was insane. Taking live humans to the Grave was idiotic, and yet it was the only plan we had.

The warmth found me like the weight of a blanket after the Irish December we had just left. Feet on the ground, I reached up and felt for heartbeats in Ruth and Jacintha; they were silent. “Where are we?” Jacintha asked. “What the fu-”

“You’re grand,” Ruth said hastily. “We’ll be alright.”

“Ruth? What’s going on?”

“They need our help, that’s all,” she told Jacintha.

“Bring me back home. Now.” I looked at Death and then at Ruth, which was probably what inspired Jacintha to snap, “Who the hell are these two, anyway?”

“Oh, you really don’t want to know,” muttered Ruth.

“No offence taken,” I said. My attempt to lighten the mood was met with disapproving glowers from all three directions. “My name is Zilla. I am an Usher of Death.” Jacintha looked taken aback. I pointed at my brother. “He’s Death.”

“Usher of Death?” Jacintha repeated sceptically. “You’re taking the piss, surely.”

“Not at all. I help to collect the dead from Earth and bring them here – if they are agreeable, of course.”

“But we can’t be dead. Ruth stopped me.”

“Yes,” Death said carefully. “We have done something unprecedented; we have brought living humans to their afterlife. I confess, Jacintha, that you may not have been in such abject despair recently had I not been whispering in your ear. For that, I wholeheartedly apologise.”

“How did you know about that?”

“I was there this evening. I was the voice in your head. One of them, anyway. I cannot account for any voice but mine and my sister’s.”

A glance at Jacintha told me that she was not so much confused as she was frightened; brave faces were difficult to maintain in front of supernatural beings, it seemed. Though the sky was made of gold, when my eyes met Jacintha’s, the air seemed black and void of all that I remembered needing to live. I could not look away from those eyes, and yet I could not bear to hold her stare.

Was that how she lived? In that void? It was little wonder she wanted her existence to cease. 


End file.
